Connie Krapp: Catholic Priests Call for Excommunication, North Dakotans Should Ask for an Explanation

Last week, 14 Catholic US senators voted against their faith to defeat the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would protect against abortions of babies 20 weeks or older.  In this article, Father Dwight Longenecker is calling them out, and suggesting they all be excommunicated from the church.

I do have to applaud the priest for taking this on, for standing up to members of its flock who are in a position to further the church’s precepts–and then don’t.

[mks_pullquote align=”left” width=”300″ size=”24″ bg_color=”#ffffff” txt_color=”#000000″]North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp might have let her Catholic faith down with her vote on the abortion ban bill.  But more relevant to North Dakotans is the fact that she didn’t vote the beliefs of her constituency.[/mks_pullquote]

On the other hand, separation of church and state keeps this from becoming an issue for voters.  Our government isn’t in the business of mandating religious beliefs, thank God and the first amendment! So the 14 Catholic senators who are called to the carpet (or confessional) might have to explain their vote to their church.  They don’t have to explain it to us voters.

However, all of those senators who voted to defeat the abortion ban bill should have voted the beliefs of their constituencies.  I know of one senator who did not.

North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp might have let her Catholic faith down with her vote on the abortion ban bill.  But more relevant to North Dakotans is the fact that she didn’t vote the beliefs of her constituency.  Fifty-one percent of North Dakotans believe MOST cases of abortions–and not just late-term abortions–should be illegal, according to the Pew Research Center.

The now infamous photo that is circulating the media of Sen. Heitkamp greeting her party leader, Sen. Chuck Schumer, right after defeat of the bill last week suggests she was in a party mode all the way.  That’s troubling.

But not as troubling as the images out there showing life in the womb at 20 weeks. If you haven’t seen one, Google “life in the womb at 20 weeks.” Some scientists believe that a five-month old baby in the womb can feel pain and has developed connections between her spinal cord and her thalamus (part of brain which relays sensory signals).  But it doesn’t take a science genius to figure out that  it takes an invasive, murderous procedure involving dismemberment  and lethal injection to wash her out of the womb.

Aborting a life at any stage of pregnancy is tragic.  Waiting until the baby is five months into development before it is murdered in the womb is not only wrong.  It is downright criminal.